AuthorTopic: BFD - Laptop compatability issues (Read 5758 times)

djarvis

I'm new to Zendrum. I wanted it to sound as close to the real thing as I could so I bought BFDII.My laptop is an hp Pavilion zd8000 (80Gig +200Gig external, 3.2Ghz, 2G RAM).

My first issue was latency...so I hooked up my Line 6 Toneport ux2 so that I could use the AISO driver. That was a fix for the latency. Now I'm experiencing sudden white noise randomly. Line6 says that my laptop's chipset is not compatable. It suggests that the PCI USB ports do a great job at dumping a lot of info quickly into a hard drive or a printer but they suck at playing drums. Line6 also suggests using a PCMCIA USB controller instead of the PCI type. THAT, supposedly will kill the white noise. But they added that if my motherboard is ISA it would likely continue to make cracking and popping noises.

Has anyone else experienced these problems? Is there a fix for the kickbuttt laptop I have? or will it require me to spend big bucks on a new MAC or Drum Module.

I'

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jeff sanders

it gets tricky as you add more gear and computers mostly because of drivers and compatibility with hardware. check each products forum to prove all hardware is able to work with your other gear, especially chipsets( i know only that it matters but i cant explain why sorry). then when you are sure you meet manufactures min requirements for your gear go get all the latest downloads for drivers, software updates and any patches they could require to be as current as possible. careful with some older mac stuff or the updates may actually disable your working setup. confusing enuff yet? you will need to experiment with settings and get the best results for your own specific setup. it may be necessary to allow for a small amount of latency depending on how well your system performs. reduce your cpu load by turning off any screen savers, virus progs, animated cursor, system sound events or anything you see in the task manager that may rob some computing cycles from your preferred application. the setup/compatibility is still the weak link to software instruments with computers. it definitely makes or breaks the whole systems usability. if you have the jack you can buy your way outta the mess by having a professional setup a freddy receptor with your favorite instruments already onboard. then the only hard part would be choosing between all of the great kit choices once it arrived. i know this is kinda grey on details but thats cause im in plenty of clouds myself understanding it. good luck

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Bruce Richardson

I answered your email earlier. I wanted to just boil down the suggestions here, so that we'd have the conversation on the forum. I probably won't be able to check back for several days--I'll be on the road.

Here are my top ideas about your dilemma:

1) The Line6 people probably don't realize the intensity of the MIDI you're throwing via that USB piece. Although USB can be a little sketchier than Firewire on a laptop, the bottom line is that the Toneport is probably not made for the intensity of MIDI/Audio that you're bringing with the Zendrum.

So, my recommendation would be to perhaps check out the PCMCIA option (since you could easily return that) and see if that solves anything. If that doesn't work, then I'd check out Firewire options from Echo. They've got EXTREMELY fast drivers. Ultimately, it's the quality of the drivers (ASIO in this case) as they relate to the piece of hardware and OS, much more so than any type of motherboard/hardware/chipset compatibility. Put as politely as I can muster--they fed you a line of baloney about compatibility. It's their drivers, not the chipset.

2) You could look into a Receptor. Frankly, I'm cold on that choice. You're paying a LOT of cash for old/slow technology. For the same cash, you can rig a killer 4-space Rackmount PC, blazing fast, with actually a lot more redundancy and faultproofing capability than you'd have with the Receptor. No slight to the piece...it's just that music software technology continues to explode, and by this time next year, most sampling apps will not run on the Receptor you purchase today. You have to be smart and disciplined about it, but I've been performing with a Rackmount PC since 1999, and I've seen a lot of other solutions come and go, while mine has never let me down.

THAT said...

Your problems with the laptop, I would say with almost 99% certainty, are related to the MIDI/audio interface. If you're going to perform with any type of computer, the MIDI/audio hardware has to be rock solid with great drivers. Echo is only one of many ways to go, but it's the one reasonably priced brand I can give a hearty recommendation for. Personally, even with a laptop, I'd opt for something that screws into a rack, and is road-ready. That is going to be far more secure onstage than wiring up a bunch of tabletop stuff to a laptop...which is a rather precarious stage situation. I could see you setting up a 4-space or so rack with a power conditioner and a couple of spaces left open, so that you could actually pack your laptop in a bag inside, and just pop the lids, unpack the laptop, bang in the firewire cable, and off you rock.

Another thing you might try, which is a free download is "ASIO4ALL" it turns your PC sound card into an ASIO driver, it works well. than a cable style USB MIDI interface. I have a Yamaha one that works well.

Aye have a Roland TD-20 and two laptops with BFD 2 installed. Aye was running into some of the problems that you are experiencing, but Aye called upon Mr. Wizard (John Emrich) to assist me. Ye have to look in yer settings and make certain that certain parameters are not set too high. Aye be not familiar with Line 6, but Aye use a MOTU Midi interface as well as a Presonus USB to Midi Audio Interface. After a parlay with Mr. Wizard, we figured out my sampling rate was too high, causing latency. Aye also had me bit rate set at either 32 or 64 (can't remember anymore), but we set that to 8, lowered the sample rate and the latency went away. He also suggested a get a decent DAW, such as Ableton or Studio One to run as a host for BFD. My original laptop for this was an HP, Intel I5 with 4 Gbytes RAM and a 250 Gbyte Hard drive with a 1TB external using USB 3.0. That seemed to wirk just fine, except that Aye couldn't manage to save any defined kits (Aye believe this is operator error). Since then Aye have broken down, under extreme pressure from me shipmates here in the forum and purchased a macbook pro with an intel I5 and 8GB of memory connected to the aforementioned 1TB external hard drive using Firewire 800. Using the Presonus audio interface and ASIO drivers, seems to provide a working solution, although Aye am still befuddled by the inability to save/recall kits that I design on a consistent basis. Aye still prefer the TD-20 for its portability and ease of setup. Once Aye figure this software thing out, Aye will probably switch to the computer way as routine.

Another thought is that our fine folks at Zendrum have developed the Zendrumdrive. A computer already rack mounted in its own travel case, with Battery 3 software and samples already loaded. It has a Solid State Hard drive and starts instantly. Truly a plug and play device and extremely portable. Have a parlay with Inspector 109 and he will give you all the great details.

Aye hope this helps.

Fair Winds and Following Seas,Pyrate

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Lost at sea with the Jolly Roger Zendrum!Pyrate Factoid: Black Bart Roberts was the most successful Pyrate of the Golden Age. He captured over 400 ships between 1720 and 1722.